Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday May 29, 2014 @11:20AM
from the calling-shotgun dept.

camperdave (969942) writes "SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is set to unveil the Dragon V2 at a media event from Hawthorne, California, tonight at 7 pm. Pacific. The 'Dragon V2' is an upgraded, man rated version of the unmanned spaceship that has made several successful cargo trips to the International Space Station. The new craft will carry a mix of cargo and up to a seven crewmembers to the ISS. According to Musk, this is 'Actual flight design hardware of crew Dragon, not a mockup.' Following the space shuttle's forced retirement in 2011, US astronauts have been totally dependent on the Russian Soyuz capsules for ferry rides to orbit and back. The crisis in Ukraine, which has resulted in some U.S. economic sanctions imposed against Russia, also has the potential to threaten U.S. access to the ISS as the Russian government considers reciprocal sanctions of its own.
'Sounds like this might be a good time to unveil the new Dragon Mk 2 spaceship that @SpaceX has been working on with @NASA,' Musk tweeted. SpaceX is one of three commercial space companies competing for funding from NASA's Commercial Crew Transportation Capability program."
(You can watch the event as a webcast.)

You do realize that inhabited Mars missions are assessed to be in the 10 to 50 billion dollars ballpark, right?And billionnaires typically have that kind of money.So it's not really being a gullible cultish fanboy to think that Musk has a good chance to pull it off...

Long term goals for the launch recovery include recovery of the second stage, essentially the entire rocket would be recovered and reused. If that can be accomplished (a non-trivial "if" certainly), launch costs could drop to the hundreds of thousands range rather than the tens of millions. You could have 100 launches for the cost of a single one today (already one of the cheapest launch platforms in history). Most of the cost of major missions is getting stuff to orbit; cut that one item by 99% and a lo

Future technology & economics will differ greatly from the present context, rendering "dollar"-estimates useless. Even estimates of "man-hours" will fall away as robotic labor expands. In even just ten years, the processes of research, development, & manufacturing will again be transformed to a new paradigm.

Why stop at the moon? Elon Musk is so charismatic that I believe that Tesla now completely dominates the U.S. car market.

I'm probably totally missing the [sarcasm] and [joke] tags on your comment, but the Tesla is certainly the most successful electric car in it's class (or at all right now), and realistically, SpaceX is the most realistic alternative to the Russians. None of the other commercial space companies have anything remotely close to being ready for service; Jeff Bezos' "Blue Trampoline" or whatever he calls it is a "vanity" project that has a long, long way to go to be taken seriously.

The bad old days of being attacked by Germany or further back, being attacked by France. You really can't blame them for getting paranoid about a superpower spending billions in a neighbouring country to overthrow the elected government, a country that is in the process of putting missile defences on its borders as well as having missiles very close to its borders. You can imagine if the roles were reversed and Russia was spending money like crazy in Mexico to incite the population to overthrow their govern

That would be the elected government that turned out to be a bunch of corrupt pigs with their snouts in the trough. Just because you where democratically elected does not give you immunity to being overthrown if you turn out to be rotten eggs. Remember Hitler and the Nazi's where democratically elected.

Only 28 years since its been legal for an American company to launch things into space using their own equipment, and even after that western governments (including the U.S) were actively hostile towards private space flight. For instance they forced OTRAG operations into a 3rd world country and then banned using them because it might help the 3rd world country to develop long range missiles.

So no, not 40 years you ignorant statist twat. You give the state so much power that they prevent free markets from

You do not know rocket history very well. e.g. Von Braun started working at a rocket club in Germany with Oberth where they did a rocket used for a publicity stunt to promote the 'Frau im Mond' movie by Fritz Lang. Some people there had the business idea of using rockets to carry mail quickly point to point. Once WWII started their efforts were redirected to military applications. Eventually the technology got severely restricted and yes people like Lutz Kayzer, who wanted to make commercial rockets, failed

An important cirterium for an ISS escape capsule is that it must be able to remain functional while being docked for months. I don't know if the dragon can be stored in space for half a year and still function reliably.

I don't know if the dragon can be stored in space for half a year and still function reliably.

That's not particularly hard, unless you generate your power from fuel cells, which would have to keep hydrogen liquid for months. And even the Apollo CSM could stay in space for 2-3 months for the longer Skylab missions.

Apparently [wikipedia.org] the Dragon capsule can remain docked for as much as 210 days... as long as a Soyuz. One of the many videos I was watching today said that the Dragon could be in orbit for two years.

The problem with most private commercial flight companies is that they usually end up serving exactly one customer: the U.S. Government. I don't think it's fair to characterize that as "private." The harsh fact is that, aside from satellite launches, there is pretty much no reason for any other entity to go into space.

The problem with most private commercial flight companies is that they usually end up serving exactly one customer: the U.S. Government. I don't think it's fair to characterize that as "private." The harsh fact is that, aside from satellite launches, there is pretty much no reason for any other entity to go into space

Believe it or not, the US Government (and other governments as well) are not the only people launching satellites or other spacecraft...

I'm saying there are plenty of other customers other than the US government, and plenty of reasons other than satellite launches that private space corporations can cater to. NASA is not the only game in town.

Hundreds of people from dozens of countries and private companies have found some reason for spending the millions upon millions of dollars needed to get into space. So, clearly there is a market. Denying the facts is lunacy, but go ahead if it makes you feel better.

Today, the government space "market" is mostly for PR value and political patronage.

"Why" doesn't matter. Maybe it is national pride. Maybe it is the opportunity to conduct experiments at the finest microgravity research facility in the solar system. "Why" doesn't matter. What matters is that governments and private citizens are willing to pay someone to ferry them into space. SpaceX thinks they can do it cheaper than the competition. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're wrong. Only time will tell.

The US government isn't even the customer for a majority of the launches through 2015. If you're specifically talking about manned missions you might have a better argument. But even then the Bigelow Aerospace launch is tantalizing hints of the future... even if it's only the futu

No, it is totally legitimate to say it is "private" even if the government is the only buyer (and their not –as others have pointed out.) – the profits flow to Musk & Company.

I think what you are trying to say is that it is not a free market – but that also is not true. For a free market to work all you need is multiple independent agents (publicly or privately owned) who can freely bid for the work. That is the bare minimum in order to have a free market is to have multiple producers

Welcome to the Space X Dragon and someone finally with GUTS; Elon Musk.

Well, there are reasons why NASA pushed the shuttle for so long that have nothing to do with incompetency. The whole "Gee whiz! Look kids! It's reusable!" approach was a way to save money in the face of budget cuts. Why were budgets being cut, do you ask? Well, there is no shortage of Americans who say "Why are we throwing away money on NASA for nothing when we have too many problems at home to fix?" It took a long time and 2 spectacular fatal events before the message got driven home so clearly that

That's because launch system designs don't just appear out thin air. They have to be paid for.

What's more, there isn't enough money in the world to pay for a launch system project that is "privatized" the way politicians mean "privatized": undertaken by contractors with no competition and no money of their own at stake.

"there isn't enough money in the world to pay for a launch system", but wait there is enough money for a $1 trillion dollar program that has NOT achieved its stated desired results as verified by the GAO!

"there isn't enough money in the world to pay for a launch system", but wait there is enough money for a $1 trillion dollar program that has NOT achieved its stated desired results as verified by the GAO!

NASA holding onto? Are you insane? The space shuttle was MANDATED by congress, just like the heavy lift rocket they are developing for no reason. Not only does congress tell NASA what to build, they insist certain companies and states manufacturing capacity be used. NASA often isn't even allowed to price shop because it would price ATK and other defense contractors out of competition. NASA is treated by congress as one great big pork barrel where rather than giving NASA options to reduce cost they force NASA to buy and build things they don't even want. Not unlike the military where congress frequently forces the military to buy defense products they don't want because some congresscritter's district holds the factory.

Remember Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex? Well NASA is a key component of that abuse because just like the DOD NASA spends enough money to draw the attention of those with influence who can make lots of money on those items.

The Space Shuttle is a really weird mix of qualities. The boosters are actually very good at their job - they're extremely powerful, and surprisingly reusable. The main engines are also good - they're some of the most efficient engines to be flown, period, and they're the most efficient that ever flew regularly. Using an external tank also is a good move - it's much cheaper, and it means the only thing getting thrown away is an empty tank. On paper, the Shuttle should have been an amazing craft.

It makes complete sense. Why add weight and complexity when you've got a perfectly good propulsion system already on your capsule.

Isn't this one reason why SpaceX want to remove the parachutes, too? If you design it to land with the thrusters, they can perform launch abort, in-orbit maneuver, and landing with the same fuel (obviously, if you do a launch abort, you don't need any fuel for in-orbit maneuver, so it can be used for landing).

Actually, my quibble isn't with the gender connotations of the statement, but with the verb tense of the statement. The V2 hasn't, as far as I know, actually received certification for manned space flight. Rather, it has been designed (and probably some testing complete) to be able to receive such a rating.

It hasn't been rated yet, just that it could be and is intended to be. In that sense, it is more accurate to call it "man ratable" (the subjunctive tense) rather than "man rated" (past tense).

Actually, my quibble isn't with the gender connotations of the statement, but with the verb tense of the statement. The V2 hasn't, as far as I know, actually received certification for manned space flight.

Nor did the shuttle, as far as I'm aware. Certainly it couldn't meet NASA's current requirements for commercial crew (1 in 500 loss on ascent and 1 in 500 loss on descent, according to Wikipedia).

50%, 90%, 99%. I stand by my original statement: it is "man-ratable", and not yet "man-rated". I fully expect that they've done their homework and will, after additional flight demonstrations, receive the certification. But they haven't gotten it yet.

Considering it's the only system not having massive failures in 30 years, well...

It's come pretty close, though. If I remember correctly, the last decade has had at least one backward reentry when the service module failed to detach, and at least one ballistic reentry when the computer lost contol for some reason.

Musk is actually a huge Obama supporter, and Obama has been seen talking to, giving praise to, and visiting with Elon Musk. SpaceX and Elon Musk have been a huge part of the Obama Space Strategy. Any anti-obama sentiment comes from the ending of Republican-politican-approved programs, such as the Space Shuttle through companies like ATK and Boeing.

I've read that Musk contributes to both Republicans and Democrats (but more to Dems IIRC). Dude understands that the reality of the world is that certain wheels need to be greased, especially if what you're doing will rock certain boats.

Nah man. For one the Space Shuttle was planned to be retired back when W was still President. It was deemed necessary to retire it to save money for the abortive uber expensive Ares rocket that NASA Administrator Mike Griffin was pushing. When Obama got into power most of the Shuttle maintenance facilities had already been closed down like the rocket engine manufacturing and refurbishing plant. Little he could do but cancel it as scheduled at that point. The plan was always to rely on Soyuz launches until a